January 9, 2008...3:11 pm
Safari 3 Crashes On Launch
**** UPDATE Update: 19 March 08 Safari 3.1 for Windows is out of Beta and available from www.apple.com/safari ****
If you’re using Safari 3 Beta on Windows XP it may develop a nasty habit of crashing as soon as it launches. This is certainly something that a lot of people experienced as soon as the Beta was released in June, but it seems to have resurfaced in later versions in December.
I experienced this with version 3.0.4. (3.523.12.9) just before going away for the holidays. I hadn’t installed a new version of the browser, it just stopped working one day. So now I’m back from holidays I’ve had a chance to sort the problem out and noticed that other people seemed to be having the same problems around mid December.
The short answer is that you need to install Safari 3.0.5, but that’s not available at the usual address of apple.com/safari which is still carrying version 3.0.4.
You can download it from the Apple developer website (registration required, but free).
You login, choose downloads and then in the menu on the right, choose Safari.There’s been a lot of interest in this post so it seems that quite a few people are experiencing this problem. Let me know how you get on in the comments sections and if this new download has cleared up your problems. Also see the comments below about uninstalling and removing old content first.
8 Comments
January 10, 2008 at 9:02 am
THANK YOU so much for posting this. It keeps crashing at work and I need it for testing! I thought I was going mad.
January 10, 2008 at 10:00 am
You’re welcome.
If you’re using it on XP and only require it for testing (i.e. so long as you’re not bothered about losing bookmarks etc) then it can help to clear out the following two folders as well.
C:\Documents and Settings\[YOUR USERNAME]\Local Settings\Application Data\Apple Computer\Safari
and
C:\Program Files\Safari
January 14, 2008 at 10:54 pm
Thanks so much! I was also having the same problem (at work) and need Safari for testing. This worked!
January 14, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Spoke too soon! It stays open now, but if I try to go to any other page (besides http://www.apple.com/startpage/), it crashes. Won’t even go to apple.com. Just the startpage.
With version 3.0.4, it would crash as soon as it opened.
January 14, 2008 at 11:48 pm
Yvette, I’ve seen some sites that suggest this is because of safaris bookmarks becoming corrupted.
Ideally you should uninstall the old version first through Add/Remove programmes.
Then remove the contents of these 2 folders.
C:\Documents and Settings\[YOUR USERNAME]\Local Settings\Application Data\Apple Computer\Safari
and
C:\Program Files\Safari
Restart
Then install.
Good luck
January 15, 2008 at 5:38 am
Thank you so much! I needed Safari to add favelet bookmarks to my iPhone. Yay!
February 15, 2008 at 9:07 pm
Thanks for this but I just downloaded the newest and it’s still crashing at startup :-( More googling for me.
Here’s the direct no-login link until the session eventually times out:
http://connect.apple.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/MemberSite.woa/304/wa/download?path=%2FSafari%2Fsafari_for_windows_public_beta_seed_31a2%2Fsafarisetup.exe.zip&wosid=zUpZzAhWrw4w3m9VrgB2cfCK606
It’s dated February 6, 2008 Build 31A2
February 15, 2008 at 10:12 pm
Okay I figured out the solution to fixing the crash on startup.
I noticed in the readme.txt it says that it will use the plugins from the firefox plugin folder - so I started to guess there was a plugin there it didn’t like. So I renamed \firefox\plugins to \firefox\plugins.bad temporarily.
Then Safari worked!
So I changed the home page to blank on Safari, closed it, renamed the firefox plugins folder back, and now both safari and firefox will start just fine.
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